Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
using aerosol mass spectrometry: characterization,
improved calibration, and implications
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Citation
Canagaratna, M. R., J. L. Jimenez, J. H. Kroll, Q. Chen, S. H.
Kessler, P. Massoli, L. Hildebrandt Ruiz, et al. “Elemental Ratio
Measurements of Organic Compounds Using Aerosol Mass
Spectrometry: Characterization, Improved Calibration, and
Implications.” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 15, no. 1
(2015): 253–272.
As Published
http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-253-2015
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Copernicus GmbH
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Final published version
Accessed
Thu May 26 07:22:55 EDT 2016
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http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/94327
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Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
www.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/253/2015/
doi:10.5194/acp-15-253-2015
© Author(s) 2015. CC Attribution 3.0 License.
Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
using aerosol mass spectrometry: characterization,
improved calibration, and implications
M. R. Canagaratna1 , J. L. Jimenez2 , J. H. Kroll3,4 , Q. Chen3 , S. H. Kessler4 , P. Massoli1 , L. Hildebrandt Ruiz5 ,
E. Fortner1 , L. R. Williams1 , K. R. Wilson6 , J. D. Surratt7 , N. M. Donahue8 , J. T. Jayne1 , and D. R. Worsnop1
1 Aerodyne
Research, Inc., Billerica, MA, USA
of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences (CIRES),
University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA
3 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
4 Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
5 McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, and Center for Energy and Environmental Resources, The University of
Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
6 Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA, USA
7 Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
8 Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
2 Department
Correspondence to: M. R. Canagaratna (mrcana@aerodyne.com)
Received: 27 June 2014 – Published in Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss.: 31 July 2014
Revised: 17 November 2014 – Accepted: 25 November 2014 – Published: 12 January 2015
Abstract. Elemental compositions of organic aerosol (OA)
particles provide useful constraints on OA sources, chemical evolution, and effects. The Aerodyne high-resolution
time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometer (HR-ToF-AMS) is
widely used to measure OA elemental composition. This
study evaluates AMS measurements of atomic oxygento-carbon (O : C), hydrogen-to-carbon (H : C), and organic
mass-to-organic carbon (OM : OC) ratios, and of carbon oxidation state (OSC ) for a vastly expanded laboratory data
set of multifunctional oxidized OA standards. For the expanded standard data set, the method introduced by Aiken et
al. (2008), which uses experimentally measured ion intensities at all ions to determine elemental ratios (referred to here
as “Aiken-Explicit”), reproduces known O : C and H : C ratio
values within 20 % (average absolute value of relative errors)
and 12 %, respectively. The more commonly used method,
which uses empirically estimated H2 O+ and CO+ ion intensities to avoid gas phase air interferences at these ions
(referred to here as “Aiken-Ambient”), reproduces O : C and
H : C of multifunctional oxidized species within 28 and 14 %
of known values. The values from the latter method are sys-
tematically biased low, however, with larger biases observed
for alcohols and simple diacids. A detailed examination of
the H2 O+ , CO+ , and CO+
2 fragments in the high-resolution
mass spectra of the standard compounds indicates that the
Aiken-Ambient method underestimates the CO+ and especially H2 O+ produced from many oxidized species. Combined AMS–vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) ionization measurements indicate that these ions are produced by dehydration
and decarboxylation on the AMS vaporizer (usually operated at 600 ◦ C). Thermal decomposition is observed to be
efficient at vaporizer temperatures down to 200 ◦ C. These results are used together to develop an “Improved-Ambient”
elemental analysis method for AMS spectra measured in air.
The Improved-Ambient method uses specific ion fragments
as markers to correct for molecular functionality-dependent
systematic biases and reproduces known O : C (H : C) ratios
of individual oxidized standards within 28 % (13 %) of the
known molecular values. The error in Improved-Ambient
O : C (H : C) values is smaller for theoretical standard mixtures of the oxidized organic standards, which are more representative of the complex mix of species present in ambient
Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.
254
M. R. Canagaratna et al.: Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
OA. For ambient OA, the Improved-Ambient method produces O : C (H : C) values that are 27 % (11 %) larger than
previously published Aiken-Ambient values; a corresponding increase of 9 % is observed for OM : OC values. These
results imply that ambient OA has a higher relative oxygen
content than previously estimated. The OSC values calculated for ambient OA by the two methods agree well, however (average relative difference of 0.06 OSC units). This indicates that OSC is a more robust metric of oxidation than
O : C, likely since OSC is not affected by hydration or dehydration, either in the atmosphere or during analysis.
1
Introduction
Organic aerosols (OA) account for a substantial fraction of
ambient submicron aerosol mass in urban and rural/remote
environments, with important impacts ranging from human
health to climate forcing (IPCC, 2013; Pope and Dockery,
2006). In recent years the Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometers (AMS; Canagaratna et al., 2007) have seen wide use for
characterizing the composition, the elemental ratios (H : C,
O : C, N : C, S : C, OM : OC) (Aiken et al., 2007, 2008) and
the approximate carbon oxidation state (OSC ≈ 2× O : CH : C) of OA (Kroll et al., 2011). This information provides
key constraints for understanding aerosol sources, processes,
impacts, and fate, and for experimentally constraining and
developing predictive aerosol models on local, regional, and
global scales.
Organic aerosol elemental ratios can be measured with
a number of analytical techniques besides the AMS. These
include combustion analysis (O’Brien et al., 1975; Krivacsy et al., 2001; Kiss et al., 2002), electrospray ionization coupled to ultra-high-resolution mass spectrometry with (ESI) (Nguyen and Schug, 2008; Altieri et al.,
2009; Bateman et al., 2009; Kroll et al., 2011; Mazzoleni
et al., 2010), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy (Fuzzi et al., 2001), Fourier transform infrared
spectroscopy (FTIR) (Gilardoni et al., 2009; Mysak et al.,
2011), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) (Mysak
et al., 2011). Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GCMS) (Williams et al., 2006) and chemical ionization mass
spectrometry (CIMS) with aerosol collection interface have
also recently been coupled to a high-resolution time-of-flight
mass spectrometer to allow for determination of elemental ratios (i.e., O : C and H : C) of organic aerosols (LopezHilfiker et al., 2014; Yatavelli and Thornton, 2010; Williams
et al., 2014). Each of these techniques has its own strengths
and weaknesses. AMS measurements of bulk aerosol elemental composition are obtained directly from the average
elemental compositions of the individual fragment ions observed in high-resolution AMS spectra. One strength of the
AMS approach is that it offers the capability of online, sensitive detection of aerosol elemental composition. A weakness
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
is its use of empirical corrections that can affect the accuracy
of the calculated elemental ratios. This manuscript evaluates
the accuracy of the AMS elemental analysis approach over a
wider range of OA species than has been studied before.
In the AMS, aerosol particles are focused into a beam in
a high-vacuum chamber and typically flash-vaporized on a
tungsten vaporizer at a temperature of 600 ◦ C before constituents are detected with electron ionization (EI) mass spectrometry. Thus, the elemental composition obtained from
AMS mass spectra can be potentially biased by two sources:
vaporization and ion fragmentation. Organic molecules, particularly oxidized organic species comprising oxidized organic aerosol (OOA), can decompose during the AMS vaporization process to form stable molecules with elemental
compositions that differ from the original parent molecule.
Carboxylic acids and alcohols, for example, are known to
undergo thermally induced dehydration and decarboxylation
as follows (Moldoveanu, 2009):
RCOOH−→1 CO2 + H2 O + CO + R0
(R1)
RCOH−→1 H2 O + R0
(R2)
The decomposition products are all ionized and detected by
the AMS. The loss of neutral CO2 , CO, and H2 O from the
parent carboxylic acid and alcohol molecules results in the
formation of organic ions in EI (R0 + and their fragments)
that differ significantly from their parents in chemical identity and elemental composition. The accuracy with which the
parent elemental ratios are calculated from AMS measurements will depend on the accuracy with which the C, H, and
O masses in all of the decomposition fragments are measured
or accounted for. Mass spectral interferences from gas and
particle species further complicate accurate determinations
of H2 O+ and CO+ intensities for OA sampled in air (Aiken
et al., 2008).
Previous work by Aiken et al. (2007, 2008) showed that
O : C and H : C ratios of laboratory standard molecules can
be estimated to within 31 and 10 % (average absolute value
of the relative error, respectively) with the AMS. The “AikenExplicit” (A-E) method averages the elemental composition
of all measured fragment ions observed in high-resolution
mass spectra and uses H : C and O : C calibration factors
derived from laboratory measurements of standard organic
molecules. The calibration factors account for differences between the elemental compositions of the detected fragment
ions and their parent molecules, e.g., due to the tendency of
more electronegative fragments with high O content to end
up as neutrals rather than as positive ions during the ion fragmentation process. The “Aiken-Ambient” (A-A) method is
similar; however, it uses empirically estimated H2 O+ and
CO+ intensities for OA sampled in air. The Aiken-Ambient
method is widely used for elemental analysis of ambient and
www.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/253/2015/
M. R. Canagaratna et al.: Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
chamber OA because the intensities of H2 O+ and CO+ originating from OA are difficult to separate from those originating from other background species in air.
In this study we extend the Aiken et al. (2007, 2008) elemental analysis calibrations to a wider range of OA species.
The Aiken et al. (2007, 2008) calibration data set used consisted of reduced primary OA (POA)-like organic species
and a few OOA surrogates such as dicarboxylic, fulvic, and
amino acids. The species chosen for the present study contain
multi-functional oxygenated moieties and have high O : C
values that are more representative of ambient OOA species.
We investigate the extent to which thermal decomposition of
these species (cf. Reactions R1 and R2) bias elemental ratio measurements obtained with the AMS. AMS data from
the laboratory standard molecules are used to re-evaluate
the Aiken-Explicit and Aiken-Ambient methods for calculating elemental ratios. An “Improved-Ambient” (I-A) method
(for AMS measurements performed in air) is determined as
part of this study; the changes caused by application of the
Improved-Ambient method to previously published ambient
and chamber data are discussed. Empirical relationships used
to determine O : C and H : C ratios from unit mass resolution
AMS spectra are also updated to reflect the improved calibrations.
2
2.1
Methods
Aerosol standards
A list of the aerosol standards used in this study is given
in Table 1. This list includes alcohols, diacids, polyacids,
esters, and other species with multiple functionalities such
as keto and hydroxy acids. All of the standards were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (purity ranges > 96 %) except
for three synthesized standards including a racemic mixture of δ-isoprene epoxydiol (IEPOX) diastereomers known
to be intermediates in isoprene oxidation chemistry, as well
as known isoprene-derived SOA constituents cis- and trans3-methyl-3,4-dihydroxytetrahydrofurans (Lin et al., 2012;
Zhang et al., 2012).
Aerosol particles were generated by dissolving small
amounts of each standard in about 100 mL of distilled water, followed by atomization. The standards were atomized
with argon carrier gas instead if nitrogen, since gaseous nitrogen in air produces a very large peak at m/z 28 that make
CO+ aerosol signals very difficult to separate and quantify
(even at high-resolution). Detection of CO+ is of great interest since this ion is a likely thermal decomposition fragment
of acids and potentially other species in OOA. The resulting polydisperse aerosol was then dried (with two silica gel
diffusion dryers in series) in order to remove any remaining water from the atomization process and sampled directly
into the AMS. The humidity of the flow after drying was
spot checked for several experiments and was found to rewww.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/253/2015/
255
producibly be < 4 %. Any H2 O that was not removed from
the particles after exposure to these conditions is likely to
have been further lost by evaporation when the particles encounter the 2 mbar sampling conditions of the AMS aerodynamic lens. Taken together it is likely that the aerosol H2 O
was negligible in these experiments and uncertainties due to
the presence of aerosol H2 O should have been small. The atomization setup was thoroughly cleaned between standards
and blank water runs were carried out in between standards
to ensure that cleaning between each set of standards was
successful.
2.2
AMS operation and data analysis
The HR-ToF-AMS instrument and its data analysis procedures have been described in detail in previous publications
(Canagaratna et al., 2007; DeCarlo et al., 2006). The HRToF-AMS can be usually operated in two ion optical modes
(V or W) with differing spectral resolutions. For these experiments the AMS was operated in the more sensitive V-mode.
The resolution of this mode (resolving power of ∼ 3000)
was high enough to resolve the key isobaric fragments observed from the standards studied here. The higher signal
levels observed in the V-mode also allowed for the use of
low-concentration samples in the atomizer, thereby minimizing cross-contamination between standards and avoiding signal saturation of the AMS detector or acquisition card. Highresolution ions up to the molecular weight of each standard
were fitted in order to account for all of its ion fragments. The
AMS data analysis software packages SQUIRREL (version
1.51H) and PIKA (version 1.10H) were used for the analysis of the high-resolution mass spectra. This software allows for ready calculation of elemental ratios from both A-A
and A-E methods. The A-A calculation uses the default organic fragmentation wave proposed by Aiken et al. (2008)
and the A-E method uses a copy of the default organic fragmentation wave in which the entries for m/z 28, 18, 17, and
16 are replaced to use measured ion intensities rather than
estimated values. The I-A elemental ratios discussed below
use A-A values and marker ion relative intensities calculated
from normalized organic mass spectra output by the PIKA
software.
Data collection occurred over several months and some
standards were repeatedly measured at different points in
time with the same instrument. Fig. S1a in the Supplement
shows the standard deviations in O : C and H : C values (calculated using Aiken-Ambient method) obtained during these
measurements. As can be seen, for most standards O : C and
H : C values obtained on a given instrument are reproducible
to < 5 and < 3 %, respectively. Figure S1b and c compare
O : C and H : C values obtained for different standards on
three AMS instruments. The values compare well across instruments (O : C within 4 %, H : C within 7 %).
For most of the experiments the AMS vaporizer was operated at a power corresponding to 600 ◦ C. The thermocouAtmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
256
M. R. Canagaratna et al.: Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
Table 1. A list of standards analyzed in this study and their molecular O : C and H : C ratios. Standards are categorized according to their
functionality into broad groups. All standards were studied with EI AMS, while standards also studied with VUV-AMS are noted in the last
column.
Name
Formula
O:C
H:C
VUV-AMS
Cis-Pinonic Acid
2-Oxooctanoic Acid
Acetylsalicylic Acid
Homovanillic Acid
4-Acetylbutyric Acid
5-Oxoazaleic Acid
Levulinic Acid
Gamma Ketopimelic Acid
3-Hydroxybutyric Acid
2-Ketobutyric Acid
3-Hydroxy-3-Methylglutaric Acid
1,3-Acetonedicarboxylic Acid
?-Ketoglutaric Acid
Lactic Acid
Pyruvic Acid
Citric Acid
Diglycolic Acid
Malic Acid
Oxaloacetic Acid
Glycolic Acid
Tartaric Acid
C10 H14 O3
C8 H14 O3
C9 H8 O4
C9 H10 O4
C6 H10 O3
C9 H14 O5
C5 H8 O3
C7 H10 O5
C4 H8 O3
C4 H6 O3
C6 H10 O5
C5 H6 O5
C5 H6 O5
C3 H6 O3
C 3 H4 O3
C 6 H8 O7
C 4 H6 O5
C 4 H6 O5
C 4 H4 O5
C 2 H4 O3
C 4 H6 O6
0.3
0.37
0.44
0.44
0.5
0.55
0.6
0.71
0.75
0.75
0.83
1
1
1
1
1.16
1.25
1.25
1.25
1.5
1.5
1.4
1.75
0.89
1.11
1.67
1.56
1.6
1.43
2
1.5
1.67
1.2
1.2
1.67
1.33
1.33
1.5
1.5
1
2
1.5
X
X
Cis-3-methyl-3,4-dihydroxytetrahydrofuran
Racemic mixture of δ-Isoprene Epoxydiols
Trans-3-methyl-3,4-dihydroxytetrahydrofuran
Mannitol
Mannose
Sucrose
Xylitol
C5 H10 O3
C5 H10 O3
C5 H10 O3
C6 H14 O6
C6 H12 O6
C11 H23 O11
C5 H12 O5
0.6
0.6
0.6
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2.33
2
2.09
2.4
X
X
X
Sebacic Acid
Azelaic Acid
Pimelic Acid
Adipic Acid
Glutaric Acid
Maleic Acid
Succinic Acid
Malonic Acid
Oxalic Acid
C10 H18 O4
C9 H16 O4
C7 H12 O4
C6 H10 O4
C5 H8 O4
C4 H4 O4
C4 H6 O4
C3 H4 O4
C2 H2 O4
0.4
0.44
0.57
0.66
0.8
1
1
1.33
2
1.8
1.78
1.71
1.67
1.6
1
1.5
1.33
1
Polyacids
1,3,5-Cyclohexanetricarboxylic Acid
Tricarballylic Acid
1,2,4,5-Benzenetetracarboxylic Acid
C6 H9 O6
C6 H8 O6
C6 H6 O8
1
1
1.33
1.5
1.33
1
Esters
Dibutyl Oxalate
Gamma Ketopimelic Acid Dilactone
Ethyl Pyruvate
Dimethyl 1,3-Acetonedicarboxylate
C8 H18 O4
C6 H8 O4
C5 H8 O3
C7 H10 O5
0.5
0.57
0.6
0.71
2.25
1.14
1.6
1.43
Multifunctional
Alcohols
Diacids
ple readout from the vaporizer is sensitive to its exact placement on the vaporizer and can sometimes differ from instrument to instrument or vary with instrument use. Thus,
the measurements were standardized by varying the vaporizer power to minimize the width of a monodisperse 350 nm
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
NaNO3 aerosol size distribution measured by the AMS. The
time-of-flight traces of the NO+ ion (m/z 30) from NaNO3
were monitored as a function of vaporizer ion current. The
optimum AMS vaporizer current is obtained by subtracting
0.1 amps from the vaporizer current at which the narrowwww.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/253/2015/
M. R. Canagaratna et al.: Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
Multifunctional,Esters,Polyacids,Alcohols,Diacids;
Aiken(2007,2008)
a) A-E
b) A-E
2
Avg Abs
Rel Error = 12%
Avg Abs
Rel Error = 19%
0
c) A-A
2
Avg Abs
Rel Error = 35%
0
e) I-A
2
H:C Calculated
O:C Calculated
2
0
d) A-A
2
Avg Abs
Rel Error = 17%
0
2
Avg Abs
Rel Error = 28%
0
Avg Abs
Rel Error = 13%
0
0
2
Molecular O:C
0
2
Molecular H:C
Figure 1. Scatterplots between known elemental compositions and
AMS elemental ratios obtained with the Aiken-Explicit (A-E; panels a and b), Aiken-Ambient (A-A; panels c and d), and ImprovedAmbient methods (I-A; panels e and f). A 1 : 1 line is shown for
reference in all plots. The standards examined in this study are colored according to their chemical functionality. Also shown are previously published standard molecule data from Aiken et al. (2007).
est NO+ ion time-of-flight traces are observed from NaNO3 .
Typically this optimum AMS vaporizer current is near 1 amp.
In most cases the thermocouple readout at the optimum
heater power setting read temperatures in the range 590–
600 ◦ C, indicating that the thermocouples in these instruments were providing a reasonably accurate measure of the
actual heater temperature. In addition to the standard 600 ◦ C
operation, a few experiments were also performed at 200 ◦ C
(about the lowest temperature at which the AMS vaporizer
can be operated continuously) in order to investigate how
the amount of thermal decomposition and ion fragmentation
changed with temperature. In both of these cases, the typical
vaporization timescale for particles was measured to be on
the order of 100 µs.
2.3
VUV ionization
Northway et al. (2007) described the adaptation of an HRToF-AMS to the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) beam at the Advanced Light Source (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory). We
performed a similar adaptation in this study and generated
and analyzed selected standards (see Table 1) using the same
procedures discussed above. Previous work has shown that
compared to 70 eV EI-AMS spectra, VUV-AMS spectra are
typically less complex, with reduced ion fragmentation and
increased molecular ion intensity (Canagaratna et al., 2007;
Northway et al., 2007). Molecular ions observed in VUVAMS spectra of unoxidized and slightly oxidized squalane
www.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/253/2015/
have been successfully used to obtain chemical and mechanistic insight into the squalane oxidation reaction (Smith et
al., 2009). Moreover, the tunability of the VUV light can be
used to investigate the chemical identity of species by measuring their threshold ionization energy (Leone et al., 2010).
The threshold ionization energy of most organic molecules
is 10.5 eV and those of H2 O, CO2 , and CO molecules are
12.62, 13.77, and 14.01 eV, respectively (NIST Chemistry
WebBook: http://webbook.nist.gov/chemistry/). Thus, in this
experiment the 8 to 14.5 eV VUV range was used.
2.4
f) I-A
257
Elemental analysis (EA) methods
The procedure for obtaining elemental ratios (O : C, H : C)
from AMS spectra was first developed by Aiken et al. (2007,
2008). The atomic O : C and H : C ratios are obtained in terms
of the relative mass concentrations of O (MO ) and C (MC )
and H (MH ) as follows:
O : C = αO : C × (MO /MC ) × (MWC /MWO )
(1)
H : C = αH : C × (MH /MC ) × (MWC /MWH )
(2)
MWC , MWO , and MWH are the atomic weights of C, O, and
H, respectively. Since AMS ion intensities are proportional
to the mass of the original molecules present (Jimenez et al.,
2003), MC , MO , and MH are obtained as a sum of the appropriate ion intensities across the complete organic spectrum
(including H2 O+ , CO+ , and CO+
2 ) as follows:
MC =
m/z
max
X
Ij Fc ,
(3)
Ij FO ,
(4)
Ij FH ,
(5)
j =m/zmin
MO =
m/z
max
X
j =m/zmin
MH =
m/z
max
X
j =m/zmin
where Ij is the ion intensity of the j th ion in the spectrum and
FC , FO , FH are the relative carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen
mass fractions for that ion. Calibration parameters (αO : C and
αH : C ) account for preferential losses of some atoms to neutral fragments rather than ion fragments during the fragmentation processes. The tendency of hydrocarbon fragments to
form positive ions more readily than those containing the
more electronegative O atom, for example, can result in such
a detection bias. Aiken et al. (2008) obtained slopes of 0.75
and 0.91 (i.e., αO : C = 1/0.75 and αH : C = 1/0.91), respectively, by comparing measured and known O : C and H : C
values for a range of organic standards according to Eqs. (1)
and (2).
In AMS elemental analysis, Eqs. (1) and (2) are applied
in two different ways which we refer to here as the AikenExplicit and Aiken-Ambient methods (Aiken et al., 2008).
The Aiken-Explicit method is used when organic signals at
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
258
M. R. Canagaratna et al.: Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
H2 O+ and CO+ can be directly measured. Laboratory measurements performed in an atmosphere of dry argon, for example, do not contain the interfering H2 O or N2 species and
allow for direct measurement of the organic signals at CO+
and H2 O+ . The organic signals at CO+ have also been obtained under ambient conditions from AMS size distributions and by monitoring changes in the m/z 28 intensities
(Zhang et al., 2005; Takegawa et al., 2007). Calibrations have
also been carried out in laboratory chamber experiments under controlled relative humidity to determine the interference
signals and obtain the organic signals at CO+ and H2 O+ by
subtraction (Chen et al., 2011; Nakao et al., 2013).
The Aiken-Ambient method is used for measurements performed in air where the interferences from gaseous N2 and
H2 O are difficult to estimate. Since most field measurements
and laboratory chamber measurements are performed under the latter conditions, this method has in practice been
the most widely used method of obtaining elemental ratios
from AMS measurements. In the Aiken-Ambient method,
the organic H2 O+ and CO+ intensities used in Eqs. (3)–
(5) are empirically estimated rather than directly measured.
+
+
The H2 O+ / CO+
2 and CO / CO2 ratios recommended by
Aiken et al. (2008) were empirically estimated from limited ambient OA measurements available at the time to be
0.225 and 1, respectively. The CO+ / CO+
2 ratio was determined from AMS size distribution measurements where the
gas-phase signal from N2 can be separated from the particle
phase CO signal intensities (Zhang et al., 2005; Takegawa
et al., 2007). The H2 O+ / CO+
2 mass ratio was empirically
estimated to conserve OA mass concentrations that resulted
+
+
from the new CO+ / CO+
2 ratio. This H2 O / CO2 empirical mass ratio corresponds to a raw ion signal ratio of either
0.225, assuming H2 O+ and CO+
2 were each formed with a
relative ionization efficiency (RIE) of 1.4 or 0.321, using a
recently determined RIE of 2.0 for the formation of H2 O+
(Mensah et al., 2011).
by Aiken et al. (2008) and confirms that the Aiken-Explicit
method can be used for a wide range of OA species.
Figures 1c and 1d show Aiken-Ambient results for the laboratory standards. In general the Aiken-Ambient O : C values are biased low for all the standards, and observed errors are dependent on the functional groups contained in the
different standard molecules. The Aiken-Ambient values for
multifunctional standard molecules are biased low by 28 %
and those for diacids and alcohols are biased low by 46 %.
The error in Aiken-Ambient H : C values for all standards is
smaller, but alcohols and diacids are still biased low compared to multifunctional species.
3.2
Measurements of H2 O+ , CO+ and CO+
2 signal
intensities with Electron Ionization (EI)
The only difference between the Aiken-Explicit and AikenAmbient methods is the measured vs. estimated H2 O+ and
CO+ ion intensities. Since these ion intensities are estimated
based on assumed H2 O+ and CO+ ratios to CO+
2 , we investigate trends in the relative signal intensities of these three
key ions in the observed standard mass spectra. Figure 2
shows the fractional AMS ion intensities (relative to the total
ion signal for each standard) measured for these key thermal
decomposition products in the spectra of the different laboratory standards. The standards are separated according to
functionality, and they are arranged according to increasing
molecular O : C. Measurements of the same standard on different instruments are shown as separate bars on the graph.
The general agreement between different instruments supports the reproducibility and transferability of the results obtained here to other AMS instruments. The relative intensities
of the three ions vary according to specific differences in the
decomposition mechanisms including those shown in Reactions (R1) and (R2) above. Spectra from carboxylic acids, esters, polyacids, and multifunctional acids have higher fCO+
2
3
3.1
Results and discussion
Evaluation of Aiken-Explicit and Aiken-Ambient
methods
We evaluated the performance of both Aiken-Explicit and
Aiken-Ambient methods over a large range of species, including those with higher O : C and more multifunctional
moieties than originally studied by Aiken et al. (2008). Panels a and b in Fig. 1 show elemental ratios obtained with
the Aiken-Explicit method for the laboratory standards studied here. The Aiken-Explicit method results reproduce actual O : C and H : C ratios for all the standard molecules with
an average absolute value of the relative error (referred to
as “error” in the rest of this manuscript) of 20 and 12 %,
respectively. This is consistent with the accuracies reported
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
(defined as the intensity of CO+
2 divided by the total ion intensity) and fCO+ than alcohols, indicative of decarboxylation. On the other hand, spectra from alcohols have negligible fCO+ and significant fH2 O+ , indicative of dehydration
2
(Reaction R2).
Figure 3a shows the fCO+ vs. fCO+ scatterplot for all
2
the standards in this study. For most multifunctional systems, the fCO+ /fCO+ ratio is relatively consistent with the
2
assumed value of 1 from Aiken et al. (2008). The measured fCO+ /fCO+ ratios for alcohols and most diacids are
2
≥ 2 which likely contributes to the additional underestimation in O : C that is observed for these species with the AikenAmbient method. These measurements are generally consistent with previous studies that have shown that most laboratory SOA (thought to contain a mixture of multifunctional
species) yield fCO+ /fCO+ values around 1 (Chhabra et al.,
2
2010; Chen et al., 2011) with exceptions of SOA produced
by isoprene photooxidation (2.63; Chen et al., 2011) and glywww.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/253/2015/
M. R. Canagaratna et al.: Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
259
+
+
Figure 2. Fractional AMS ion intensities (relative to the total ion signal for each standard) measured for CO+
2 , CO , and H2 O from
each of the laboratory aerosol standards studied here. The standards are classified according to functionality and then arranged according to
increasing O : C. Repeat measurements were performed for some of the standards to investigate the consistency of measured mass spectra
between different HR-ToF-AMS instruments. Repeat measurements performed for the same standard are arranged together and denoted by
red horizontal bars on the bottom axis of the graph.
www.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/253/2015/
Standards
Multifunctional,Esters,Polyacids,Alcohols,Diacids
a)
b)
Slope=2 Slope=1
Slope=2 Slope=1
0.25
0.25
0.20
Slope=0.5
0.15
fH2O+
0.20
fCO+
oxal uptake under dark, humid conditions (5.0; Chhabra et
al., 2010), both of which contain products that are rich in hydroxyl functional groups but poor in carboxyl groups (Hastings et al., 2005; Lin et al., 2012). Ambient estimates are
also in the similar range of 0.9–1.3 (Takegawa et al., 2007;
Zhang et al., 2005). The fCO+ /fCO+ ratios discussed above
2
are summarized in Table 2.
The relationships between fH2 O+ and fCO+ for the stan2
dard spectra are shown in Fig. 3b and Table 2. The observed
signal intensity ratios in the spectra are larger than those calculated from the empirical mass ratios of Aiken et al. (2008).
The measured fH2 O+ /fCO+ ratio of multifunctional species
2
varies from near 0 to over 2, and many diacids are between 1
and 2 (although some are substantially lower than 1). Polyols and alcohol spectra have even higher ratios, mainly due
to their lack of CO+
2 . As shown in Table 2, similar departures
from the assumed fH2 O+ /fCO+ ratios were originally ob2
served for chamber SO0A by Chen et al. (2011) (0.84–3.91)
and more recently by Nakao et al. (2013) (0.33–1.23). We
note that in mixed ambient aerosols the fH2 O+ /fCO+ ratios
2
would be moderated by the presence of species other than
alcohols. However, high values for this ratio (1.0) were also
reported for ambient measurements from Whistler Mountain
(Sun et al., 2009). It is clear from Fig. 3 that the biases in the
elemental ratios obtained with the Aiken-Ambient method
are due to underestimations of the assumed fH2 O+ /fCO+ and
2
fCO+ /fCO+ values. The H2 O+ and CO+ intensities observed
2
for alcohols, in particular, are severely underestimated in the
current assumptions since the estimates are tied to CO+
2 , an
ion that is not produced in any significant intensity in spectra
0.15
0.10
0.10
0.05
0.05
0.00
0.00
Slope=0.321
Slope=0.225
0.0
0.1
0.2 0.3
fCO2+
0.4
0.0
0.1
0.2 0.3
fCO2
0.4
+
Figure 3. Scatterplots between AMS fractional ion intensities for
+
+
CO+ and CO+
2 (panel a) and H2 O and CO2 (panel b). The empirical ratios used for each of these relationships in the Aiken-Ambient
calculations are shown as solid lines with the appropriate slopes. In
panel (b), two solid lines are shown to reflect the measured ratios
that correspond to possible H2 O RIE values ranging from 1.4 to 2
(see Sect. 2 for more information). Dashed lines in both panels are
included for reference to visualize the range of slope values.
of species that do not contain -C(O)OR moieties (e.g., alcohols).
In the Aiken-Ambient method, the intensities of the OH+
and O+ fragments of H2 O+ are estimated according to the
ratios measured for gas-phase H2 O. Figure S4 shows the
scatterplots of measured fOH+ vs. fH2 O+ and fO+ vs. fH2 O+
for all the laboratory standards. The empirical estimate used
in the default AMS fragmentation table (Allan et al., 2004)
for the OH+ / H2 O+ ratio is very consistent with the observed relative intensities, indicating that the OH+ ion indeed arises from the fragmentation of molecular water from
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
260
M. R. Canagaratna et al.: Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
Table 2. Summary of fragment ion ratios observed for standard molecules, chamber SOA, and ambient SOA. The entry * denotes the use of
Aiken assumptions for the ratio in the fragment table.
Obs H2 O+ /
CO+
2
Obs CO+ /
CO+
2
Frag Wave H2 O+ / CO+
2
RIE H2 O=1.4
Frag Wave H2 O+ / CO+
2
RIE H2 O=2
Literature
Reference
0.32
1
0.32
0.225
Aiken et al. (2008)
0.5–1.5
1
2
0.5–1
> 10
1–2
1–2
2
1
>4
0.5–1.5
1
2
0.5–1
> 10
0.35–1.05
0.7
1.4
0.35–0.7
>7
This Study
*
*
1
1.3
1
*
*
*
1
*
*
0.7
Zhang et al. (2005)
Takegawa et al. (2007)
Sun et al. (2009)
Isoprene Photooxidation (Low NOx )
3.9
1.03–2.6
3.9
2.7
Isoprene Photooxidation (NOx )
α-pinene+O3
0.3
0.8–1
*
1–1.1
0.3
0.8–1
0.2
0.6–0.7
β-caryophyllene+O3
0.7–1.3
1.2
0.7–1.3
0.5–0.9
Toluene Photooxidation (NOx )
Aromatics Photooxidation (NOx , Low NOx )
Naphthalene Photooxidation (Low NOx )
1.8
0.3–1.3
*
1
*
1.2
1.8
0.3–1.3
*
1.3
0.2–0.9
*
Chhabra et al. (2010),
Chen et al. (2011)
Nakao et al. (2013)
Chhabra et al. (2010),
Chen et al. (2011),
Nakao et al. (2013)
Chen et al. (2011),
Nakao et al. (2013)
Hildebrandt Ruiz et al. (2014)
Nakao et al. (2013)
Chhabra et al. (2011)
AMS Frag Table
Aiken Assumptions
OA Standards
Multifunctional
Polyacids
Diacids
Esters
Alcohols
Ambient Aerosol
Pittsburgh, USA
Tokyo, Japan
Whistler Mtn, Canada
Chamber SOA
thermal decomposition of the standards. The consistency in
these fragmentation patterns also holds for various chamber
SOA (Chen et al., 2011). The O+ / H2 O+ ratio, in contrast,
shows substantial scatter as the dominant source of the O+
for our standards appears to be fragmentation of CO+
2 rather
than H2 O+ (Fig. S4c). Alcohols, which do not produce CO+
2,
are an exception with O+ / H2 O+ ratios that are much closer
to the empirical estimates. Fragmentation of CO+
2 to yield
O+ (O+ / CO+
∼
6
%)
is
currently
not
accounted
for in the
2
AMS elemental ratio analysis and will contribute to the underestimation observed in AMS O : C values.
3.3
Measurements of H2 O+ , CO+ and CO+
2 with VUV
ionization
+
The H2 O+ , CO+
2 , and CO signals observed in the AMS
are produced by dehydration and decarboxylation processes
that take place before ionization (i.e., on the vaporizer surface or in the gas-phase after evaporation) and/or after 70 eV
electron-impact ionization (i.e., fragmentation of thermally
excited ions). VUV-AMS measurements were used to examine the production mechanisms of these ions in more detail.
VUV-AMS data were obtained for many standards with the
AMS vaporizer set to both 200 and 600 ◦ C (see Table 1). All
experiments were carried out under an argon atmosphere. A
VUV-AMS spectrum of glutaric acid is shown in Fig. 4a as
an example. This spectrum was observed with the AMS va-
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
porizer at 200 ◦ C and a VUV photon energy of 10.5 eV. Since
VUV is a “softer” ionization method than EI, this spectrum
would be expected to contain only the glutaric acid molecular ion if thermal decomposition on the vaporizer was negligible. However, even at this lower vaporizer temperature,
the molecular ion of glutaric acid (m/z 132) has very low
intensity and organic ion fragments corresponding to loss of
neutral H2 O, CO, and CO2 from glutaric acid are observed
+
+
instead. CO+
2 , CO , and H2 O are negligible in this spectrum at this VUV photon energy.
+
+
Figure 4b shows the CO+
2 , CO , and H2 O signals observed from glutaric acid as a function of VUV energy. The
+
+
onsets of CO+
2 , CO , and H2 O signals are observed to occur at VUV energies that correspond to the ionization energies of neutral H2 O, CO2 , and CO molecules (12.62, 13.77,
and 14.01 eV, respectively), rather than the 10.5 eV ionization energies of the observed organic ions. This indicates that
these ions are formed by VUV ionization of neutral CO2 ,
CO, and H2 O molecules rather than by dissociative ionization of glutaric acid. Neutral CO2 , CO, and H2 O fragments
formed upon photoionization of glutaric acid could further
ionize to give rise to these signals. This process requires
the absorption of two photons in the ionization region, however, and is therefore unlikely. Instead, the most likely source
+
+
of CO+
2 , CO , and H2 O signals is direct VUV ionization
of neutral CO2 , CO, and H2 O molecules formed from thermal decomposition of organic species on the AMS vaporizer.
www.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/253/2015/
M. R. Canagaratna et al.: Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
Ion rate (Hz)
a) 6
+
Glutaric Acid (MW=132 g/mol)
114 (M-H2O)
o
+
200 C/ 10.5 eV VUV
86 (M-CO-H2O)
4
70 (M-CO2-H2O)
60(C2H4O)
2
+
+
88 (M-CO2)
+
0
20
40
Intensity (Hz)
b)
4000
CO2+(5x)
+
CO (5x)
+
H2O
3000
2000
60
(
80
m/z
H2O IE
(12.62 eV)
100
120
CO IE 1.0
CO2 IE
(13.77 eV) (14.01 eV)
0.8
+
C5H6O3
+
M-H2O ,10x)
0.6
0.4
Organic IE
(10.5 eV)
1000
0.2
0
0.0
10
11
12
13
VUV Energy (eV)
14
Figure 4. VUV-AMS spectrum of glutaric acid obtained under an
argon atmosphere. The spectrum was obtained at a VUV energy of
10.5 eV and a vaporizer temperature of 200 ◦ C. Ions corresponding
to loss of CO2 , CO, and H2 O moieties from the parent ion (M+ ) are
observed. (b) Glutaric acid VUV-AMS signals as a function of VUV
monochromatic photon energy. The signal intensity of C5 H6 O+
3,
which corresponds to the [M-H2 O]+ ion, and the signal intensities
+
+
of CO+
2 , CO , H2 O are shown. The gas phase ionization energies
(IE) for neutral CO2 , CO, and H2 O molecules are shown as colored
vertical lines.
VUV-AMS measurements of the other organic standards also
show a lack of parent ions and fragments corresponding to
loss of CO2 , CO, or H2 O moieties (see Fig. S2), indicating
that a wide range of oxidized organic species undergo dehydration and decarboxylation upon heating to temperatures
greater than 200 ◦ C.
3.4
Effect of vaporizer temperature on H2 O+ , CO+ ,
and CO+
2
Thermal denuder measurements have shown that ambient OA needs to be heated to a minimum temperature of
∼ 225 ◦ C for several seconds in order to insure quantitative
vaporization of a significant fraction of ambient oxidized
OA (Huffman et al., 2009). Figure S3 compares the trends
in fH2 O+ , fCO+ , and fCO+ observed with the AMS (using
2
EI) at vaporizer temperatures of 600 and 200 ◦ C. The total
+
+
CO+
2 , CO , H2 O decomposition fragment intensities observed for both temperatures is remarkably similar across the
standards. In most cases, fH2 O+ is slightly higher at 200 ◦ C
compared to 600 ◦ C, while fCO+ follows the opposite trend
and fCO+ changes little between the two temperatures. This
2
www.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/253/2015/
261
indicates that dehydration is facile for these acids and alcohols even at 200 ◦ C, which is also consistent with the VUV
results shown in Fig. 4. The extent of thermal decomposition observed in the AMS is likely influenced by its specific vaporization conditions (i.e., porous tungsten hot surface and high-vacuum conditions). For example, Lloyd and
Johnston (2009) reported that in laser-desorption–electronionization analysis of SOA, the signal due to CO+
2 was much
lower than in AMS spectra of the same aerosol type, and attributed the difference to differences in the vaporization conditions. Our measurements suggest that thermally induced
decomposition could affect the interpretation of organic measurements from other aerosol chemistry measurement techniques that utilize thermal desorption on surfaces, even if
temperatures of only 200 ◦ C are reached. Such techniques include aerosol gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GCMS) and thermal-desorption chemical ionization mass spectrometry (CIMS) (e.g., (Lopez-Hilfiker et al., 2014; Williams
et al., 2006; Yatavelli and Thornton, 2010; Holzinger et al.,
2013). Proton transfer reaction – mass spectrometry (PTRMS) measurements of heated ambient filters by Holzinger
et al. (2010), for example, show low molecular weight fragments at higher thermal desorption temperatures, consistent
with this finding. The specific impact of the surface materials, vaporization temperatures, and pressure conditions on
the decomposition reactions of OA should be the focus of
future studies.
3.5
Improved-Ambient method
It is clear from Fig. 3 that the relationships among
+
are variable and cannot be well prefCO+ , fH2 O+ , and fCO
2
scribed with a single empirical relationship. Furthermore, as
discussed in Sects. 3.2 and 3.3, O : C and H : C calculated
with the Aiken-Ambient method are biased low because the
empirical estimates used in this method often underestimate
the intensities of the H2 O+ and/or CO+ fragments. Acidic
species are observed to be a large source for CO+ and H2 O+
fragments while alcohols are a significant source of H2 O+
fragments.
A correction that is dependent on both acid and alcohol
content of the OA is needed to address this composition
dependence in the OA fragmentation. Previous AMS measurements have shown that fCO2 + can be used as a surrogate for acid content (Duplissy et al., 2011; Takegawa et al.,
2007). An AMS surrogate for alcohol moieties has not been
identified before, but spectra obtained during this study indicate that fCHO+ , (m/z 29) can be used as a surrogate for
alcohol content. As shown in Fig. S5, spectra of standard
species with no alcohol content have minimal fCHO+ < 0.05,
while those with non-zero alcohol content show fCHO+ values ranging from 0.05 to 0.15. High fCHO+ values are found
for polyols as well as multifunctional species with non-acid
OH groups. Some esters are also observed to yield fCHO
similar to species with non-acid OH groups. The cleavage
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
M. R. Canagaratna et al.: Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
O : CI−A =
O : CA−A × [1.26 − 0.623 × fCO2 + + 2.28 × fCHO+ ]
H : CI−A = H : CA−A × [1.07 + 1.07 × fCHO+ ]
a) 4
b) 4
3
3
2
1
0
-1
Average Abs
Error = 0.5 OSc
¯¯ units
-2
-2
0
2
Molecular ¯ŌSC
4
1:1 line
2
1
0
-1
-2
-2
0
2
I-A ¯ŌSC
4
Figure 5. (a) Scatterplot of Improved-Ambient OSC values
(2× O : C – H : C) of the organic standards vs. their known molecular OSC values. The Improved-Ambient method was applied with
the default AMS organic fragmentation wave (colored solid circles)
as well as with the Hildebrandt Ruiz et al. (2014) changes to the organic fragmentation wave. (b) Scatterplot of Aiken-Ambient OSC
values of the organic standards vs. the corresponding ImprovedAmbient method values. The error bars denote the propagated uncertainty in the Aiken-Ambient OSC values due to the uncertainties
in the Aiken-Ambient O : C and H : C values. The solid line shows
the 1 : 1 relationship.
(6)
(7)
In the equations above, the Improved-Ambient (I-A) elemental ratios are expressed as a product of Aiken-Ambient (AA) elemental ratios and a composition-dependent correction
factor. This allows for simple recalculation of the ImprovedAmbient elemental ratios from Aiken-Ambient values without the need for performing a re-analysis of the raw mass
spectra and can be easily applied to already published AMS
results.
Figures 1e and 1f show the O : C and H : C values obtained
for the standards after using the Improved-Ambient method
in Eqs. (6) and (7). The corrections remove the systematic
O : C underestimation seen in Fig. 1c for the multi-functional
species. The diacids and alcohols are still biased low in O : C,
but the bias has been reduced. The errors in the O : C and
H : C elemental ratios calculated for the standards with the
Improved-Ambient method are 28 and 13 %, respectively.
Smaller errors (8 %) are observed for the values of OM : OC
using the Improved-Ambient method (see Fig. S6).
Figure 5a compares the approximate carbon oxidation
state values calculated from the Improved-Ambient elemental ratios and the known standard elemental ratios of the
organic standards. The two sets of values agree within a
standard deviation of 0.5 OSC units. The largest deviations
are observed for the laboratory standards whose ImprovedAmbient O : C values are biased lower than the known values. Figure 5b shows a comparison between the OSC values
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
Default Frag Wave
Multifunctional,Esters,Polyacids,Alcohols,Diacids
Hildebrandt Frag Wave
Aiken et al. (2007,2008)
A-A ¯ŌSC
of aldehydes to give CHO+ is not generally observed to be
important (McLafferty and Turecek, 1993). Previous studies
have shown that CHO+ is also an atmospherically significant
ion and a key oxygen-containing ion in many types of ambient and chamber aerosol (Ng et al., 2010a). The f29 (fCHO+ )
fragment has also been used to monitor photooxidation of
glyoxal and related species in the aqueous phase (Lee et al.,
2011). Based on these results, a composition-dependent correction factor with a linear dependence on fCO2 + and fCHO+
was examined. While the CHO+ fragment is easily resolved
from the isobaric C2 H+
5 organic fragment in high-resolution
AMS spectra, it overlaps with 15 N14 N+ fragments from N2
in air. Thus, a background correction must be used in order to
obtain an accurate value of fCHO+ . AMS data acquired while
sampling through a particle filter can be used to obtain the
information needed for such a background correction (as is
already necessary for the accurate determination of fCO2 + ).
We performed a multiple linear regression between the
known elemental ratios of the OA standards and those determined from Eqs. (1) and (2) to obtain the best-fit constants
and coefficients as follows:
I-A ¯ŌSC
262
calculated for the standard molecule data using the AikenAmbient and Improved-Ambient methods. The error bars on
the standard data indicate the estimated uncertainty in the
calculated Aiken-Ambient OSC values (using propagation of
O : C (H : C) errors of 28 % (14 %) observed for multifunctional species with Aiken-Ambient method). In general, the
agreement between the Aiken-Ambient OSC values and the
Improved-Ambient OSC values is much better than the propagated errors. This indicates that the oxidation state values
derived from AMS data (and potentially from other techniques using thermal desorption MS) are more robust and
less variable than measured values of H : C and O : C.
The robustness of the OSC parameter is largely due to its
invariance with respect to dehydration (and hydration) processes (Kroll et al., 2011). The OSC value that is currently
calculated from AMS spectra is not strictly invariant with
respect to hydration and dehydration because the AMS fragmentation table neglects small amounts of H+ formed from
fragmentation of H2 O+ ions (Hildebrandt Ruiz et al., 2014).
Other fragments, such as OH+ , and O+ are properly accounted for as discussed above. Figure 5a shows the effect of
calculating Improved-Ambient OSC values with a fragmentation table that includes the H+ fragment (see Supplement
for details). The Hildebrandt Ruiz et al. (2014) correction results in slightly smaller OSC values than obtained with the
default AMS fragmentation table due to a small (< 3 %) increase in the Improved-Ambient H : C.
www.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/253/2015/
M. R. Canagaratna et al.: Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
Estimated accuracy of the Improved-Ambient
method for mixtures
a)
The errors observed in the Improved-Ambient elemental ratios of individual OA standards are expected to be upper limits for the corresponding errors in mixtures, where inaccuracies in individual molecule predictions can compensate for
each other. The expected improvement in accuracy for mixtures is investigated here for randomly generated theoretical
mixtures of the OA standard molecules.
Theoretical standard mixtures were generated by combining equimolar fractions of up to 25 different individual OA
standards.
Each mixture of individual standards is expressed
P
as i ni Cxi Hyi Ozi , where ni is the mole fraction of standard
i in the mixture, and xi , yi , and zi are the number of C, H,
and O atoms within a molecule of standard i. The O : C ratio
for any given mixture is calculated as follows:
X
X
(O : Ci(I−A) × ni xi )/ (ni xi )
(8)
O : Cmix(I−A) =
i
(9)
i
H : C ratios are calculated analogously with the appropriate
substitutions in Eqs. (8) and (9). For each type of mixture,
1000 different randomly generated versions were examined
and the average absolute value of relative errors in the calculated Improved-Ambient elemental ratios over all 1000 variants is calculated for each mixture. For the 1000 mixtures
made of 25 standards, the O : C ratios ranged from 0.3 to 0.83
and the H : C ratios ranged from 1.36 to 1.92. The mixtures
made of 10 standards covered a wider range of O : C ratios
(0.18–1.02) and H : C ratios (1.15–2.02). For comparison, the
average Improved-Ambient O : C (H : C) values of LV-OOA
are 0.84 (1.43) and of SV-OOA are 0.53 (1.62). Thus, the
elemental ratios of the organic standard mixtures cover the
range of ambient observations.
Figures 6a and b show the error in Improved-Ambient
O : C and H : C values as a function of the number of standard
molecules in the mixture of interest. It is clear from the figure
that the error becomes smaller and plateaus for both of the elemental ratios as the number of OA species in the mixture is
increased. For O : C and H : C the errors decrease from 28 to
12 % and 13 to 4 %, respectively, as the number of species in
the mixture is increased. The plateau in the error is already
reached for both elemental ratios by the time that only 10
different standard OA species are added together. Ambient
OA is a complex mixture of hundreds of individual species.
If the standard molecule mixtures are reasonably representative of ambient OA mixtures, these results indicate that the
Improved-Ambient O : C and H : C values calculated for ambient OA and SOA have errors close to ∼ 12 and ∼ 4 %, respectively.
www.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/253/2015/
15
10
5
0
i
X
X
O : Cmix(Molecular) =
(O : Ci(molecular) × ni xi )/ (ni xi )
20
0
Error in H:Cmix (I-A) (%)
i
25
Error in O:Cmix (I-A) (%)
3.6
263
5
10
15
20
Number of Species
25
10
15
20
Number of Species
25
b)
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
0
5
Figure 6. (a) Errors in Improved-Ambient O : C ratio of organic
standard molecule mixtures as a function of number of species in the
mixture. (b) Errors in Improved-Ambient H : C ratio of the organic
standard molecule mixtures as a function of number of species in
the mixture.
3.7
Effect of Improved-Ambient method on previous
measurements of AMS elemental ratios
Given the large number of AMS data sets that have reported
OA elemental ratios calculated with the Aiken-Ambient technique, it is useful to examine the impact that the proposed
corrections will have on existing results and their interpretation.
We focus on several HR-AMS data sets that have been analyzed with the Aiken-Ambient method and for which elemental ratios have been reported in the literature, and/or
for which HR spectra are available on the HR-AMS
spectral database (http://cires.colorado.edu/jimenez-group/
HRAMSsd/).
For ambient data sets, elemental ratios have been previously reported for total OA as well as OA components
(i.e., groups of organic species that represent different OA
sources and or processes). Primary OA (POA) species are
directly emitted into the atmosphere while secondary OA
(SOA) are species formed as a result of atmospheric transformation (Ulbrich et al., 2009; Zhang et al., 2011; Lanz et
al., 2007). Several types of POA have been identified, includAtmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
264
M. R. Canagaratna et al.: Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
O:C
H:C
OM:OC
¯ŌSC
Chamber SOA
Ambient OA
0.0
-0.5
-1.0
-1.5
Total OA
OOA
LV-OOA
SV-OOA
COA
BBOA
HOA
Toluene
Sesquterpene
a-pinene
Isoprene
2.0
1.6
1.2
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
Aiken_Explicit (Chamber data only)
Aiken_Ambient
Improved_Ambient
Figure 7. Summary of elemental composition information obtained
across chamber and ambient OA measurements. The figure shows
values obtained with the Improved-Ambient method as well as the
Aiken-Ambient method. Aiken-Ambient elemental ratios are shown
with errors from Aiken et al. (2007, 2008) for reference. For the
chamber data, Aiken-Explicit values measured by Chen et al. (2011)
and Hildebrandt Ruiz et al. (2014) are also shown. The elemental
composition information shown for ambient OA is averaged over
the data sets shown in Table S1 and S2 in the Supplement.
ing hydrocarbon-like organic aerosol (HOA), which is associated with fossil fuel combustion and other urban sources,
biomass burning OA (BBOA), cooking OA (COA), and other
OA from local sources (LOA) (Zhang, et al., 2011 and references therein). SOA species, which generally dominate ambient OA mass concentrations, consist of a continuum of oxidized organic aerosol species (OOA), which reflects differences in extent and mechanisms of photochemical aging as
well as precursor sources (Ng et al., 2010b; Jimenez et al.,
2009). Two broad types of ambient SOA, denoted as LVOOA (low volatility oxidized organic aerosol) and SV-OOA
(semi-volatile oxidized organic aerosol), have been identified
at many locations. LV-OOA represent the more highly oxidized organic aerosol while SV-OOA are the less oxidized
OA.
Figure 7 shows the average O : C, H : C, OM : OC, and
OSC values obtained when previously published field and
chamber SOA data are analyzed using the ImprovedAmbient method. Aiken-Ambient values are shown for all
data and Aiken-Explicit values are shown for the chamber SOA. The data for Fig. 7 are available in Table 3 and
the detailed values for each field data set are in Tables S1
and S2 in the Supplement. The Improved-Ambient elemental ratios of chamber SOA are higher than previously reported Aiken-Ambient values and the relative change varies
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
with the identity of the precursor. For the α-pinene + O3
and β-caryophyllene + O3 SOA (Chen et al., 2011), the predicted increase in O : C (H : C) is smaller than that for the
isoprene + OH (Chen et al., 2011) and toluene + OH SOA
(Hildebrandt Ruiz et al., 2014). These differences are likely
linked to the specific molecular functionalities associated
with SOA formed from each precursor. Isoprene SOA, for
example, is known to produce organic peroxides (Surratt et
al., 2006) and polyols (Claeys et al., 2004) while major products of toluene SOA are known to be small acids (Fisseha
et al., 2004). The largest increases are comparable to those
observed for the standard molecules with diacid and polyol
functionalities while the smaller increases are consistent with
those observed for multifunctional standards. The ImprovedAmbient elemental ratios of ambient OA (individual components as well as total OA) generally lie at the high error limit
of the Aiken-Ambient values. The Improved-Ambient O : C
and H : C values of total OA, for example are larger than the
corresponding Aiken-Ambient values by approximately 27
and 11 % on average. These relative differences are similar to
those observed for the multifunctional OA standards (Fig. 1c)
and smaller than those observed for some of the individual
chamber SOA systems or individual SOA standards.
Figure 7 shows that chamber SOA elemental ratios calculated with the Improved-Ambient method agree well with
those calculated using the Aiken-Explicit method. This
agreement is important since it confirms that the ImprovedAmbient method compares well with the Aiken-Explicit
method not only for laboratory standards but also for OA
mixtures with complex compositions and molecular functionalities that cannot be readily duplicated with commercial standards. Recently, agreement between gas and particle
phase elemental ratio measurements of highly oxidized, extremely low-volatility organic compounds (ELVOCs) formed
in the α-pinene + O3 reaction has also been demonstrated
(Ehn et al., 2014). This agreement was found when lowvolatility oxidized products (ELVOCs) were measured as individual molecules in the gas phase using CIMS and as condensed particle phase species using AMS and the ImprovedAmbient method. The proposed auto-oxidation mechanism
in Ehn et al. (2014) indicates that the ELVOCs probably
have multiple hydroperoxide moieties. Though hydroperoxides are not represented in the calibration set, the agreement between the individually identified ELVOCs measured
in Ehn et al. (2014) and the O : C of low-concentration αpinene SOA obtained from AMS data using the Improved
method describe here is encouraging.
While the Improved-Ambient only corrects the elemental ratio values obtained with the AMS, the resulting increase in both O : C and H : C values implies an increase in
organic mass as well. On average, the OM : OC ratios obtained with the Improved-Ambient method for total OA are
9 % higher than previously published Aiken-Ambient values.
The average Improved-Ambient OM : OC ratio of total OA
is 1.84 with variation from 1.3–1.5 for primary OA comwww.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/253/2015/
M. R. Canagaratna et al.: Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
ponents to 1.8–2.2 for secondary OA components; chamber
SOA Improved-Ambient OM : OC ratios vary with precursor.
The OM : OC ratio of the ambient OOA components is consistent with water soluble fraction of aged ambient aerosol,
which has been measured by other techniques to be in the
range of 2.1 (Turpin and Lim, 2001) to 2.54 (Polidori et al.,
2008). A fit of the Improved-Ambient OM : OC data results
in the following empirical relationship (see Fig. S5):
OM : OCI−A = 1.29 × O : CI−A + 1.17
(10)
In Fig. 7, it is important to note that the carbon oxidation state of total OA calculated with the Improved-Ambient
method remains relatively unchanged from that determined
by the Aiken-Ambient method (Improved-Ambient OSC is
higher by only 0.06). The OSC values from the two methods
also agree closely even for the chamber systems that display
larger differences in O : C and H : C values (see Fig. 7). This
reinforces the conclusion that OSC is a more robust measure
of OA oxidation levels than either O : C or H : C since is not
affected by hydration or dehydration processes taking place
in the atmosphere or during the measurement process and
is thus also not sensitive to other sources of H2 O in aerosol
samples such as aerosol water or dehydration of inorganic
acids (Kroll et al., 2011).
The corrected elemental analysis values will have implications for the interpretation of van Krevelen diagrams (i.e.,
plots of H : C vs. O : C), which have been used to obtain
insights into the chemical transformations of ambient OA.
Heald et al. (2010) first showed the utility of this diagram
for bulk total OA (including POA and SOA) composition
analysis, and demonstrated that for some data sets bulk ambient OA evolved with a slope of −1, suggesting composition changes with aging that are consistent with simultaneous increases in both carbonyl and alcohol moieties. Ng et
al. (2011) used the van Krevelen diagram to follow the oxidative transformations of ambient OOA (as opposed to total OA) from multiple field campaigns and showed that they
clustered along a slope of approximately −0.5. This slope
was interpreted as being indicative of simple oxidative mechanisms that involve net additions of both C(O)OH and -OH/OOH functional groups without fragmentation (i.e., C–C
bond cleavage), and/or the addition of C(O)OH groups with
fragmentation. Van Krevelen plots of ambient and chamber SOA species from Table 3 are shown in Fig. S7. The
Improved-Ambient method yields van Krevelen slopes that
are approximately 20 % shallower than those determined
with the Ambient-Aiken method. Details are discussed in
Chen et al., 2014. These slopes (−0.8 for total OA and −0.4
for OOA) suggest that the ambient OA oxidative mechanisms
involve different net addition of -OH and/or -OOH functionalities and fragmentation than previously assumed.
3.8
265
Effect of improved-ambient method on empirical
parameterizations of OA elemental ratios from unit
mass resolution data
Empirical methods relating unit mass resolution (UMR)
AMS ion tracers with Ambient-Aiken elemental ratios obtained from high-resolution AMS data have been previously
reported by Aiken et al. (2008) and Ng et al. (2011). Here we
reassess these relationships for elemental ratios calculated
with the Improved-Ambient method.
Aiken et al. (2008) presented a parameterization to estimate O : C from measured f44 values. High-resolution AMS
measurements indicate that the UMR signal at m/z 44 is
+
mostly due to CO+
2 , although C2 H4 O can play a role in
some cases (e.g., isoprene SOA and BBOA). Figure 8a shows
Improved-Ambient O : C values for standard, chamber, and
ambient field data vs. f44 . A linear fit of the field OA components (primary and secondary) provides the following parameterization for Improved-Ambient O : C values:
O : CI−A = 0.079 + 4.31 × f44
(11)
Equation (11) reproduces most of the data points including
all the ambient OA components obtained by factor analysis. The O : Cs calculated with Eq. (11) reproduce measured
secondary OA component values with an error of 13 %. The
agreement for primary OA components is not as good, indicating that the accuracy of Eq. (11) is reduced when f44
is small (< 4 % on average). The outliers in Fig. 6a correspond to species with low acid content and high alcohol content (i.e., polyols, and other multifunctional species with OH
groups). Thus, the inferred O : C values for some types of marine aerosols that have been shown to contain alcohol functionalities (Hawkins and Russell, 2010) may be somewhat
underpredicted. The chamber data outliers in Fig. 8a also indicate that Eq. (11) may underpredict O : C values substantially in ambient environments dominated by NOx -free isoprene chemistry and toluene chemistry.
Ng et al. (2011) derived a method for estimating H : C values of OOA components and SOA species from f43 . This
parameterization was based on ambient OOA components
and chamber SOA species with f44 > 0.05 and f43 > 0.04. For
these species, m/z 43 is typically dominated by C2 H3 O+ .
Only a few of the measured multifunctional standards yield
mass spectra which fall within these prescribed valid ranges.
Since these few data points do not add enough significant
information to derive a new parameterization, we use them
together with chamber and field data to evaluate a scaled version of the Ng et al. (2011) relationship. We choose a scaling
factor of 1.11 since the Improved-Ambient method increases
the H : Cs of ambient OA by 11 % on average. The resulting
scaled parameterization is as follows:
2
SOA H : CI −A = 1.12 + 6.74 × f43 − 17.77 × f43
(12)
Figure 8b compares the parameterization from Eq. (12) with
the measured Improved-Ambient H : C values. The figure inwww.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/253/2015/
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
266
M. R. Canagaratna et al.: Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
Table 3. Summary of elemental composition information obtained for chamber and ambient OA.
Improved-Ambient
O:C
H:C
OM : OC
Change (with respect to Aiken-Ambient)
OSc
O : C (%)
H : C (%)
OM : OC (%)
Literature Reference
OSc (Absolute)
Ambient OA
Total OA
Aiken et al. (2009), Chen et al. (2009),
Chen et al.,(2014), Decarlo et al. (2010),
Docherty et al. (2011), Ge et al., (2012),
Gong et al. (2012), He et al. (2011),
Wang et al. (2010), Huang et al.(2011),
Huang et al.(2012), Huang et al.(2013),
Martin et al.(2008), Mohr et al. (2012),
Ovadnevaite, et al. (2011), Poulain et al.(2011),
Robinson et al. (2011), Saarikoski et al. (2012),
Setyan et al. (2012), Sun et al. (2011)
0.52
1.65
1.84
−0.60
27
11
9
0.06
1.96
1.76
1.81
1.34
1.64
1.45
−1.69
−1.04
−1.37
27
34
32
8
11
11
4
9
6
−0.09
0.01
−0.06
0.53
0.84
0.67
1.62
1.43
1.54
1.84
2.25
2.03
−0.57
0.25
−0.19
32
25
28
12
12
12
11
12
11
0.07
0.19
0.13
0.87
0.41
0.47
0.85
1.94
1.48
1.52
1.67
2.33
1.67
1.75
2.28
−0.19
−0,65
−0.58
0.10
57
24
29
50
23
9
11
25
24
7
10
22
0.27
0.04
0.06
0.30
Primary Components
HOA
BBOA
COA
0.13
0.36
0.22
Secondary Components
SV-OOA
LV-OOA
Total OOA
Chamber SOA
1.0
IIII
I IT
A
A
SS
ASSS
A
S SA
0.5
b) 2.5
0.1
0.2
f44
0.3
I
AAA
SSAS
S
S
A
1.5
I
Ambient OA Components
Secondary OA
0.00
0.05
0.10
f43
0.15
Figure 8. Scatterplot between Improved-Ambient O : C values and
f44 (fractional ion intensity at m/z 44 from unit mass resolution
data). Ambient OA component data from field campaigns are shown
as black points. The black line shows the linear fit through the ambient OA (O : CI−A = 0.079+4.31× f44 ). Chamber SOA and standard OA data are also shown in the figure. (b) Scatterplot between
Improved-Ambient H : C values and f43 for ambient secondary OA
components and chamber SOA. OA standard data is shown for the
few multifunctional species which fit the criteria for this parameterization (f44 > 0.05 and f43 > 0.04). The solid line shows a scaled
version of the Ng et al. parameterization (H : CImproved Ambient =
2 ) and the dotted lines show ±10 %
1.12 + 6.74× f43 − 17.77 × f43
deviations from the parameterization.
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
3.9
Atmospheric implications
T
1.0
0.0
0.0
I
I
0.5
0.0
I
2.0
H:CI-A
O:CI-A
a) 2.0 Ambient OA Components
Secondary OA
Primary OA
1.5
Chen et al. (2011)
Chen et al. (2011)
Chen et al. (2011)
Hildebrandt Ruiz et al. (2014)
dicates that as in Ng et al. (2011), the measured H : C values
for secondary OA components, secondary chamber OA, and
several standard molecules are reproduced to within ±10 %
by Eq. (12).
Chamber SOA
A a-pinene
S Sesquiterpene
I Isoprene
T Tolune
Standards
Multifunctional,Esters
Polyacids,Alcohols,Diacids
I
Isoprene
α-pinene
β-caryophyllene
Toluene
Aerosol elemental ratios measured with the AMS have been
previously used to distinguish between different types of organic aerosol (Jimenez et al., 2009; Ng et al., 2010), examine
the degree to which chamber SOA is able to simulate ambient
SOA (Chhabra et al., 2010; Ng et al., 2010), and to constrain
oxidation mechanisms used in theoretical models (Jimenez
et al., 2009; Kroll et al., 2011; Donahue et al., 2011; Daumit
et al., 2013; Chen et al., 2014). Here we show that while the
changes introduced by the Improved-Ambient method can be
significant, they do not change any fundamental conclusions
made from previous AMS studies.
As shown in Fig. 7, I-A elemental ratios for ambient OA
components have the same trends with respect to each other
as previously published A-A elemental ratios. The relative
levels of oxidation for the various OA components, for example, do not change with respect to each other. The OOA
components still span a continuum of oxidation levels; LVOOA components remain more oxidized than SV-OOA components, and OOA components remain more oxidized than
the various POA components (Jimenez et al., 2009). In fact,
the Improved-Ambient method enhances previous concluwww.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/253/2015/
M. R. Canagaratna et al.: Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
sions about the high degree of oxygenation of atmospheric
OOA, indicating that ambient OA has a greater oxygen content than suggested by previous AMS studies.
Laboratory chamber studies provide the ideal means of
simulating ambient aerosol formation and aging processes
under controlled and reproducible experimental conditions
(i.e., selected reactants, photochemical conditions, and aging
times). However, previous work has shown that laboratory
chamber studies are unable to generate SOA or photochemically aged OA with the same chemical composition as the
LV-OOA species observed in the atmosphere (Chhabra et al.,
2010; Ng et al., 2010). The elemental ratios obtained with
I-A method reconfirm this difference. Figure 7 shows, for
example, that the I-A elemental ratios observed for the SOA
from terpene and sesquiterpene precursors are significantly
less oxidized than the average ambient LV-OOA component.
In fact, the terpene and sesquiterpene chamber SOA generally only reach the O : C and OSc values observed for the
less oxidized SV-OOA components. As shown in Table 2,
the I-A elemental ratios of isoprene and toluene SOA experience large changes compared to their corresponding A-A
values. These changes are large enough to bring the O : C
and OSc values of these SOA in good agreement with LVOOA values. However, as shown in Fig. 4a, the oxygen containing functional groups in these SOA still do not reproduce
the mass spectral signatures obtained from ambient LV-OOA.
Thus, the gap in the AMS chemical compositions measured
for chamber and ambient SOA remains even when the I-A
method is used.
Many studies have used elemental ratios (O : C and H : C)
or the oxidation state values derived from them as key constraints to understand how OA chemical composition evolves
in the atmosphere. Some two-dimensional chemical spaces
that directly use these parameters as constraints are the van
Krevelen space discussed in Sect. 3.7 of this manuscript, OSc
vs. carbon number, and OSc vs. saturation vapor concentration (Jimenez et al., 2009; Kroll et al., 2011; Donahue et al.,
2011). Daumit et al. (2013) have used a three-dimensional
space (carbon number, O : C, H : C) to constrain and define
the chemically feasible back-reactions that could lead to the
oxidized LV-OOA species observed in the atmosphere. In
all of these spaces the measured bulk values of O : C, H : C,
and OSc provide mechanistic insight by limiting the reaction pathways and intermediates that are potentially possible. Daumit et al. (2013) have compared the difference in
constraints introduced when LV-OOA elemental ratios are
calculated using A-A and I-A methods (The I-A elemental
ratios in Daumit et al. (2013) were calculated by scaling AA O : C and H : C ratios by 1.3 and 1.11, respectively). For
the same LV-OOA volatility, elemental ratios obtained with
the I-A method constrain the LV-OOA composition to contain a higher hydroxyl / carbonyl ratio than the elemental ratios obtained with the A-A method. Since hydroxyl groups
result in lower volatility than carbonyl groups, this implies
that the average LV-OOA carbon number calculated using the
www.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/253/2015/
267
I-A constraints is lower than that calculated using A-A constraints. From the standpoint of chemical mechanisms, this
also means that the new I-A constraints will result in the need
for new reactions that produce more hydroxyl groups relative to carbonyl groups. This is consistent with the general
trend noticed in the van Krevelen diagrams (see Sect. 3.7)
which indicate that ambient OA oxidation increases O : C
while maintaining high H : C values. This suggests that models should explore different and or additional mechanisms for
adding -OH and/or -OOH functionalities during oxidation of
ambient OA.
4
Conclusions
This manuscript evaluates the accuracy of the AMS elemental analysis approach over a wider range of OA species
than has been studied before. Thermally induced dehydration and/or decarboxylation of OA species is observed to be
efficient in the AMS not only at the standard vaporizer temperature of 600 ◦ C but also at much lower vaporizer temperatures (even 200 ◦ C, the lowest feasible vaporization temperature). These processes likely also play a role in other heated
surface vaporization-based aerosol measurement techniques
even if they limit heating to ∼ 200 ◦ C. The H2 O, CO, and
CO2 molecules produced by these decomposition processes
must be taken into account in order to obtain accurate elemental composition information.
The accuracy of elemental ratios obtained with the AMS
depends on the exact method that is used. The Aiken-Explicit
method reproduces known O : C and H : C ratios to within
20 and 12 %, respectively. These results validate the use of
this methodology for calculating elemental ratios across a
range of OA molecular compositions. This method is recommended for laboratory experiments and smog-chamber measurements as well as ambient measurements when a sufficient signal is available (e.g., at very polluted sites). Careful control of the sampling conditions and/or calibration experiments that enable unambiguous extraction of the organic
signal contributions to measured H2 O+ and CO+ ion intensities are recommended for these situations (see for example Chen et al., 2011). The Aiken-Ambient method (used
for most measurements of aerosols obtained in air) produces O : C (H : C) ratios for multifunctional species that are
within 28 % (14 %) of known ratios, respectively. These values are biased low, however, with larger biases observed for
some highly functionalized species (e.g., polyols and polycarboxylic acids). Detailed analysis of the AMS spectra indicate that these biases are largely due to the use of empirically estimated intensities for H2 O+ and CO+ ions that
that are lower than the actual measured values for these ions.
An Improved-Ambient method for calculating elemental ratios from OA is developed as part of this study and is recommended for measurements obtained in air. This method
combines the Aiken-Ambient results together with correction
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
268
M. R. Canagaratna et al.: Elemental ratio measurements of organic compounds
factors that uses specific ion fragments as markers to reduce
composition-dependent bias and produce O : C (H : C) values
for the standard molecules that are within 28 % (13 %) of the
known molecular values. Future work should include comparisons between the OA elemental ratios obtained with the
Improved-Ambient technique and other elemental analysis
techniques.
Application of the Improved-Ambient elemental analysis
to previously published ambient data sets results in an average increase of the O : C and H : C values of total OA by 27
and 11 %, respectively; the OM : OC ratios of total organic
correspondingly increases by 9 %. The oxidation state values
calculated with the Aiken-Ambient and Improved-Ambient
methods, on the other hand, do not differ substantially since
OSC is invariant with respect to hydration and dehydration
processes. This indicates that OSC is a more robust parameter for monitoring oxidation of aerosols than either O : C
or H : C; comparisons between OSC measurements from the
AMS and other elemental analysis techniques are needed to
investigate this in more detail.
The Improved-Ambient method indicates that the oxygen
content of ambient OA is larger than reported by previous
AMS measurements. The chemistry involved in the formation of highly oxidized ambient OOA is still poorly characterized, and chemical pathways that produce high values of
O : C are unclear. Thus, more work is required to develop
and explore alternative chemical mechanisms and modeling methods for simulating the formation of highly oxidized
ambient OA. The van Krevelen slope resulting from the
Improved-Ambient formulation is also shallower than previously reported (−0.8 for total OA and −0.4 for OOA). Aging
mechanisms of ambient OA that qualitatively involve greater
net addition of -COH and -COOH groups relative to -CO
groups should be explored.
The Supplement related to this article is available online
at doi:10.5194/acp-15-253-2015-supplement.
Acknowledgements. We thank the participants of AMS Clinic and
AMS Users Meetings, Paul Ziemann, and Colette Heald for many
useful discussions on these topics. J. H.Kroll, M. R.Canagaratna,
and D. R.Worsnop acknowledge support from NSF CHE-1012809.
J. L.Jimenez was partially supported by NSF AGS-1243354,
NASA NNX12AC03G and NOAA NA13OAR4310063. Q.Chen
is supported by the National Science Foundation (ATM-1238109).
N. M.Donahue is supported by the National Science foundation
(AGS1136479). K. R.Wilson and the Chemical Dynamics Beamline (Advanced Light Source) are supported by the Office of Basic
Energy Sciences of the US Department of Energy under contract
no. DE-AC02-05CH11231. K. R.Wilson is additionally supported
by the Department of Energy, Office of Science Early Career
Research Program. E. Fortner, L. R. Williams, and J. T. Jayne
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 253–272, 2015
acknowledge support from the US Department of Energy (DEFG02-03ER83599, DE-FG02-05ER84269, DE-FG02-07ER84890)
Edited by: N. L. Ng
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